10 conflict

Question 1

define conflict

Answer 1

“Struggle over values and claims to scarce status, power and resources in which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure or eliminate their rivals” (Coser, 1964 [1956], p. 8)

* Conflict is not necessarily negative
* It can fuel social change, help tackle oppression, defend one’s space, introduce new ideas, and challenge dogma
	(McKinaly & McVittie, 2008)

Question 2

link to communication, cooperation and conflict

Answer 2

• Conflict involves small to large departures from otherwise prevailing cooperative patterns of communication
  • The overarching normative pressure to be cooperative places constraints on conflict escalation

Question 3

one-at-a-time rule

Answer 3

• Speaker’s talk projects possible completion (week 3)
• Next speaker has a right to start at that possible completion—not before (more precisely, not in ways that can be heard as interruptive)
• Speakers can depart from this norm by starting to talk early, before the prior speaker’s turn has come to possible completion
• This can be a way of being confrontational in conversation

Question 4

preference for agreement/ acceptance link to conflict

Answer 4

• We saw that speakers typically mitigate disagreeing responses by using delays, prefaces, and explanations (week 9)(avoids conflict - deviating from this can mean conflict)

an unmitigated dispreferred response could be a sign of tension

Question 5

departure from the norm: dispreferred responses

Answer 5

• Sometimes, speakers do not delay or mitigate a dis-preferred response (e.g., a rejection)
  • With this, they achieve a particular communicative effect: a flat rejection (Kendrick and Torreira, 2015)
  • One context for flat rejections (although not the only one) is an emerging conflict

Question 6

a flat rejection

Answer 6

when a dispreferred response is unmitigated/ not hedged

Question 7

signs of tension

Answer 7

• We can learn to spot several early signs of tension, which are possible harbingers of an emerging conflict:

    * skipped openings, 
  	
    * abrupt requests for explanations, 
  	
    * accusations, 
  	
    * early turn starts, 

flat disagreements

Question 8

How conflicts emerge (2 ways)

Answer 8

Misalignment and disaffiliation

Question 9

The initiating action invites collaboration in two ways:

Answer 9

alignment

affiliation

Question 10

alignment

Answer 10

A response that matches the structure of the initiating action. We call this alignment.

Question 11

affiliation

Answer 11

A response that embodies a matching position or stance (e.g., agreeing, granting, accepting).

Question 12

unresolved misalignments can lead to what

Answer 12

leads to disaffiliation, which can lead to a break down in cooperation

no progress can be made as sequence cannot be completed

(which is why police can use physical coercion to overcome resistance and bring the sequence to completion)

Question 13

Conflict escalation

Answer 13

• Participant can move from withholding alignment (see standoffs) to reciprocal complaints or accusations
  • Research has shown some of the ingredients that contribute to escalation (Dersley & Wootton, 2001; Pomerantz & Sanders, 2013)
  • Accusations of enduring (rather one-off) faults; judging a person rather than their actions (e.g., “Whenever I hit you it was because you lie you know, you a liar you know”)
  • Accusations are unmitigated; the accuser takes responsibility for their own words (e.g., “I’m fed up with it”)

Question 14

polarisation

Answer 14

escalation of conflict - locked into a cycle of reciprocal accusations (back and forth)

Question 15

(Watzlawick et al 1967) conflict often involves what

Answer 15

a vicious cycle of reciprocal accusations

Question 16

politeness theory (Brown & Levinson 1987): 2 types of face

Answer 16

positive face = a basic need to maintain a positive self image and be appreciated

negative face = basic need to be free of imposition by others

Question 17

unilateral exits

Answer 17

a pps can decide to leave the scene as a statement of another’s unwillingness/ inability to reach a compromise

e.g. walking out, or hanging up

Question 18

de-esculation and pre-emtion

Answer 18

concepts considered together

* These practices can be used to de-escalate emerging tensions or pre-empt them

Question 19

pre-empting escalation

Answer 19

tone down extent of disagreement:

• hedging
• exits from incipient conflicts (can restart)
• stories that introduce analogies
• explanations for refusals to cooperate
• subverting a question

Question 20

stories that introduce analogies de-escalate how?

Answer 20

Rather than directly dissagreeing, offers a personal experience which would oppose her views

Question 21

subverting the terms of a question: example

Answer 21

covert resistance rather than an up-front opposition

e.g. equivocating

e.g. ‘I have said this before’

Question 22

summary of of de-escalation

Answer 22

• Speakers can use several communication practices to mitigate the extent of their non-cooperation, thus de-escalating emerging tensions and conflicts (or pre-empting escalation). These practices:

        ○ Display sensitivity to the other’s perspective
            □ E.g. hedging
  		
        ○ Manage participation frameworks and sequences of action
            □ e.g. exiting or restarting
  		
        ○ Mobilise personal experience
            □ E.g. telling a personal story
  			
        ○ Draw on rules associated with activities and settings 
            □ E.g. "I can't talk for them.."
  			
        ○ Mobilise covert resistance rather than up-front opposition
            □ E.g. equivocation/ politician dodging

Question 23

pre-empting conflict: parent and children

Answer 23

parents typically give children opportunities to self-correct and later use stronger directives

children’s non-cooperation with parents directives = tension and conflict

so children can pre-emp conflict and mix resistance with a show of cooperation (kent 2012)

Question 24

summary

Answer 24

what conflict is

departures from conversational norms as signs of tension

actions that can promote conflict escalation

communication practices that mitigate opposition

ways of pre-empting conflict

Question 25

reading: the usefulness of disagreement

Answer 25

conflicts con arise in non-aggressive contexts (not always negative)

insults as a form of teasing play also arises among adults

participants sometimes rely upon argument and dispute in order to accomplish conversational goals which are unrelated to aggression

Question 26

reading: where does playful disputes turn into conflict?

Answer 26

Itakura (2001) explains conversational domin-ance in terms of asymmetry

e.g. retaining the conversational floor for extended period, controlling when the other can speak

- power isrelated to gender, in that it is a tactic more oftenpursued by men than by women. 

However, Goodwin (2002a, 2002b) has shown how power asymmetries of this sort can also be associated with domination within single-sex groups of young schoolgirls

Question 27

reading: denials (disguising aggression)

Answer 27

aggressors seek to minimise/ deny occurrence of aggression

surprisingly, the same sorts of denials can arise in the accounts of third parties and even in the accounts of victims themselves

(the absence of aggression is percieved as a social norm)

Question 28

reading: making aggression invisible

Answer 28

Berman (2000) has suggested that victims of vio-lence may themselves employ forms of discoursewhich conceal that violence

often avoid discussing the why of the events that occur

social norm